Cranking Up The Old Scandal Machine

June 27, 2012

Bleeding heart liberal rag Forbes does some important journalism and investigates the Fast and Furious pseudo scandal. It turns out that the basic facts the wingnuts are presenting — that the ATF was engaged in a gun-walking sting operation, is false. Well, waddaya know?

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to matter. The scandal has taken on a life of its own and it will, in my opinion, likely lead to the resignation of Eric Holder. It’s just how these things work. (Look for a shift from the scandal itself to a Village-wide condemnation of “the handling” of the scandal.)

I had to laugh when I read this, though:

Irony abounds when it comes to the Fast and Furious scandal. But the ultimate irony is this: Republicans who support the National Rifle Association and its attempts to weaken gun laws are lambasting ATF agents for not seizing enough weapons—ones that, in this case, prosecutors deemed to be legal.

Irony doesn’t begin to cover it.

I saw Chris Hayes speak this week here in LA about this book and he said a lot of interesting things, but this hit home especially: he said, “the defining characteristic of the last decade or so is a feeling of disorientation.” This sort of thing is partly why. (I date it to the gothic Clinton scandals, personally.)

Article like this should put the scandal to rest. But it won’t. And we’ll keep crying “but…it’s not true! That doesn’t make any sense!” and it will keep on happening and there’s nothing we can do about it except try to keep our own grip on reality. The disorientation is a feature not a bug.

Everyone who testified at a Congressional hearing on the state of steel fingered bad trade as the culprit in the current collapse. As it is now, trade rules require Americans to forfeit a pound of flesh before trade enforcement can occur.